Twee jonge vrouwen aan het werk 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this pencil sketch, “Two Young Women at Work” sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, and it's currently at the Rijksmuseum. The thing that grabs me about this drawing is how immediate it feels. It’s like Israels just caught these women in a quick moment. The lines are sparse, almost like a shorthand, but they convey so much. You can see the movement in the way he’s sketched their forms. Look at the way he's suggested the folds in their dresses with just a few strokes. There’s a real energy to it, a sense of the artist thinking through the process, trying to capture something ephemeral. It reminds me of Degas and his drawings of dancers, that same sense of capturing fleeting moments. Artmaking is really an ongoing conversation across time, isn't it? It’s about embracing ambiguity and multiple interpretations, rather than fixed meanings.